


After the Storm

by Querulousgawks



Series: Tumblr Prompts [14]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Arson, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Implications of off-screen assault, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 11:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11312235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: It’s always two women, in this sort of story, at least the way it’s told at Samwell.





	After the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akadiene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akadiene/gifts).



> Thanks go to medric who prompted this title for one of the fic title memes on Tumblr, and to camilliar for helping me turn it into a real fic.

It’s always two women, in this sort of story, at least the way it’s told at Samwell. Just another beloved campus tradition, another way Wellies take care of each other - not quite fodder for prospective students, but one you might learn about if you’re around long enough, or even if you’re brand-new and unlucky and turn out to really, really need it.

March and April were never that unlucky, but they _were_ taken aside, their sophomore year, after two field hockey alumnae had spent a long time in a room with a freshman from Lake Quad. They recognized Clara on sight, but neither of them really knew her. She wasn’t a student athlete, and they weren’t really Lake Quad girls. 

(It was nothing personal, just one of the hundred thoughtless ways students self-segregated. Ransom had a spreadsheet for it. March picked at predictive algorithms with him, from time to time. They weren’t the next Zuckerberg and Saverin, but it was an interesting problem, and something they had in common.)

Clara had always been a partier. They both knew that; what they didn’t know was that it came up a lot in the civil case her parents brought, after she reported the assault and the college did nothing. With that _reputation_ , and with the whole men’s lacrosse team covering for each other, there was nothing in the end but a settlement. The dean, Clara said, was suggesting she transfer.

March and April had been staring blankly as the story unfolded, and the women flanking Clara made their offer: either walk away, accept the official version of justice, and pretend you never heard this.

Or.

There was always a choice. No one was threatened, or even pressured, into taking up the mantle. That was tradition, too. But April heard the catch in Clara’s voice when she said “transfer,” and April knew that March had caught it by the way her hand came down, fingernails digging into April’s arm. April had been half-blind with rage at the story (the whole _campus_ had that _reputation_ ), but once the offer was made she was thinking about her future, too, their futures, about consequences and, a little bit, vaguely, about civil society, the effectiveness of her mother’s Legal Aid cases versus, like. Batman.

Because that’s what this was, right? Here they were with Janney and Leah from the _field hockey alumnae league_ , who were asking them to be _Batman_. April had questions.

Then Clara stumbled after speaking so evenly for so long, and suddenly April didn’t feel blind or vague at all. She gave March a sideways glance, a question in their on-court language when everything was moving too fast for words, and caught her nod in return.

“We’re in,” March said, for both of them. Clara gave them a tremulous smile.

***

There had always been two. But with a case like this, with so many perpetrators to take care of, all at once? March and April looked up the schedule for hockey practice, showed up to smile at their D-men, and pulled Lardo aside.

“Just so you know, you can walk away anytime. No consequences,” March said earnestly to Lardo. April rolled her eyes. It was serious shit, no question, but there was definitely some action-movie dialogue going on in that blonde head, too. Lardo looked at them, seemed to read something in the contrast in their faces.

“Is this about Clara?” she asked, after barely a minute’s consideration, and yeah. They’d made the right choice.

“It can’t be provable,” April said. “So it has to look like an accident, officially. But - we want them to _know._ ”

Lardo wasn’t smiling, but she seemed to lighten up, somehow. “Sounds artistic,” she drawled.

March laughed. “That’s why we thought of you,” and _ugh,_ she was cooing, like a fawning student to a sculpture TA. That was practically her Ransom voice. “Me and my _dear_ April,” she added easily.

April reached up, flicked her once in the back of the neck, and tried not to think about what they were doing. What kind of story this was, how they were building a storm.

***

Afterwards, in this kind of story, they wash the smoke off their bodies in the Pond while sirens wail on the other side of the quad. After that, even, Lardo walks damp and silent into the Haus, smelling like the volleyball team’s communal Costco body wash, and slips into bed next to Shitty.

“Missed you,” he murmurs softly, squirming down to press his face against her ribs, all the easier for her to run her fingers through his flow. “Have fun with the bro ... sisses? Do they want to be bros?”

“Yeah,” she whispers, that feeling welling up in her throat where she loves him a little differently, not more or less than she usually does but - softer, somehow. A stronger contrast, on nights like this, to the kind of love she felt when April lit the match. “Yeah, they’re bros,” she says. Then, a little choked: “You’re a good guy, you know that?”

Shitty nods, pleased at the phrase, and eases back into sleep.

The story should end there, probably: with the den of iniquity smoldering, avengers falling peacefully asleep. But maybe Lardo looks up and - plot twist! - Jack is awake and looking back at her, not particularly sleepy yet. It’s his bed where she usually finds Shitty, after all, and there’s plenty of room. Maybe Jack takes one of her hands, where it’s stilled in Shitty’s hair, and holds it in his big one while they watch each other for a minute. Jack’s a good guy, too - Lardo knows that, is fiercely certain of it. Not in the same way as Shitty, though. She wonders, absently, what sport Alicia Zimmermann played at Samwell.

“Smells nice out,” is all Jack says, if he’s even there, if it ends this way at all. At that, Lardo smiles at him, for sure, and draws him closer until they’re wrapped together around Shitty. Until their breathing settles out and everything is quiet, warm, and still.


End file.
